Stimulating Young Scientists To Engage, Motivate and Synthesize (SYSTEMS)

描述（由申请人提供）：为了让美国在科学、技术、工程和数学领域与全球竞争，我们的年轻人必须在解决问题和高级思维技能方面取得巨大进步，并且必须鼓励更多未被充分代表的少数民族学生在这些领域从事职业。该项目通过测试以下假设，解决了小学学生管道开始时的这些问题：科学素养和高级思维技能的发展将在三年级学生使用沉浸式、探究式的数字学习环境中得到提高，这些环境将数学和英语及语言艺术的学习目标结合起来。这将通过创建、现场测试、完善和评估互动式、基于探究的数字学习环境来实现，在这些环境中，学生将探索健康和疾病中身体系统的基本结构、功能和集成。为了让学生参与到学习过程中来，这些学习环境将结合3D模型、动画和嵌入式评估项目，学生将在其中探索健康猫的器官系统，然后是患有糖尿病的肥胖猫。在这样做的过程中，学生不仅会接触到身体的正常组成部分，而且还将有机会亲眼看到肥胖和糖尿病的有害影响。随着这些环境的发展，我们的团队将与教师合作伙伴一起创建可应用于学生数学和英语语言艺术课程的课程材料。为了确定这种方法是否能显著提高学生的表现、自我效能感和对科学的态度，我们将把得到的结果与同样数量的使用传统方法教学的学生的结果进行比较。在这个项目的前三年，当学习环境正在创建和实地测试时，我们将涉及大约150名佐治亚大学的理科生，他们正在参加一个完善的科学推广伙伴计划，在这个计划中，他们与少数民族学生比例很高的学校的小学教师一起工作。我们开发这些学习环境的理念是这样的：解决问题是一种技能，技能可以通过实践来磨练，解决问题和培养更高层次思维技能的关键是科学实践。在这个为期五年的项目中，1,830名三年级学生和27名三年级教师将参与其中，在项目设计中使用逻辑模型将确保适当的、可衡量的结果，这将大大增加目前关于技术对小学科学、数学、英语和语言艺术成绩影响的信息匮乏。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For the US to compete globally in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, dramatic improvements must be made in the problem-solving and higher order thinking skills of our youth, and more under-represented minority students must be encouraged to pursue careers in these fields. This project addresses those issues at the beginning of the student pipeline, elementary school, by testing the following hypothesis: Scientific literacy and development of higher order thinking skills will increase in third grade students taught basic biological concepts using immersive, inquiry-based digital learning environments that integrate mathematics and English & language arts learning objectives. This will be achieved by creating, field-testing, refining and evaluating interactive, inquiry-based digital learning environments in which students explore the basic structure, function and integration of the body's systems in health and disease. To engage the students in the learning process, a combination of 3D models, animations and embedded assessment items will be incorporated into these learning environments, in which the students will explore the organ systems of a healthy cat and then an obese cat with diabetes. In doing so, the students will be exposed not only to normal components of the body, but also will have the opportunity to see first-hand the deleterious effects of obesity and diabetes. As these environments are developed, our team will work with the teacher partners to create curricular materials that can be applied to the students' mathematics and English & language arts lessons. To determine whether this approach significantly improves student performance, self-efficacy and attitudes towards science, we will compare the results obtained with those from an equal number of students taught using traditional methods. During the first three years of this project when the learning environments are being created and field-tested, we will involve approximately 150 undergraduate science students at the University of Georgia who are participating in a well-established science outreach partnership program in which they work with elementary school teachers in schools having high proportions of under-represented minority students. Our ethos for developing these learning environments is as follows: problem solving is a skill, skills can be honed through practice, and the keys to solving problems and developing higher order thinking skills are scientific practices. Over this five-year project, 1,830 third grae students and 27 third grade teachers will participate, and the use of a logic model in the design of this project will ensure appropriate, measurable outcomes that will add significantly to the paucity of information currently available regarding the effects of technology on achievement in science, mathematics, and English & language arts in elementary schools.